Fig rooting experiment, week 1

Several folks report
that they root their hardwood
fig cuttings inside
over the winter, so I decided to give it a shot. Step one seems
to consist of wrapping the cuttings in damp newspaper and then in a
ziplock bag and placing the cuttings in a warm spot for a couple of
weeks until roots begin to form.

"Warm place" is the
operative word. One week into my experiment, with the cuttings on
top of the fridge, the one year old twigs were already starting to mold
instead of sprouting roots and leaves.

I got a little stuck
trying to figure out where in our house stays above seventy degrees day
and night before I remembered the
heating mat I use to grow sweet potato slips in the spring. It'll
definitely use less energy to just heat the cuttings than it would to
keep any part of our living space at "room temperature", and I'm
hopeful a couple of weeks on the mat will get those figs growing.

Any other fig rooting
tips from the experts out there?

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Last year I just put the cuttings into the pots of the trees I trimmed them off of and had them in a humid Greenhouse. This year I've put the cuttings in a small pot with dirt and put a zip lock bag upside down over the cuttings to keep them moist. I'll report back when I unearth them and pot them up this spring.

Seems to me that putting them on a heating mat inside a moist plastic bag will only cause the cuttings to mold -faster-!
I'd do the ol' dip into rooting hormone and stick into soil/perlite/whatever mix. Or as the previous comment suggests, in a glass of water.
Actually I'm about to do the same thing over here in California, as our local elementary school and my neighbor have some nice looking fig trees that I'd like to reproduce. They just went dormant over here.
Looking forward to some updates, Anna. Good luck!

I checked our fig cuttings and found no roots and upon pulling them out of the ground found mycelium on the part that was in the soil. I looked closely but found no real sign of life. I put them in a place where our dogs could get them and they gladly grabbed them to chew on. I noticed though after they had chewed them up that between the bottom node and the cut end the pith was decomposing and so was the wood but higher up the pith was still in good shape and the bark was still green underneath. So I may have jumped the gun on pulling them out but wanted to report back so people can learn from my mistake. Maybe cutting them so the node/bud is closer to the bottom would be of some benefit?

Brian --- Thanks for sharing your experience! In contrast, the cuttings you sent us seem to be rooting very well. I haven't dug into the dirt to look for roots, but most respond to a gentle tug with serious resistance, and a few are starting to swell their buds.

On the other hand, I ditched my own cuttings (like the ones I sent you). I think those didn't have time to harden off enough before I took them and might have been unrootable no matter what you did. Sorry to send you duds.